Where Everybody Knows You're Numb

Snow In Tampa Bay Area? It May Happen Tuesday Night

By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 19, 2009

TAMPA - If - and that's an if in boldface, capital letters - the weather dominoes line up just right, folks from Tampa Bay to Brooksville stand a chance of seeing some snow Tuesday night.

It wouldn't be heavy, certainly not something from a Currier and Ives painting, but there is a chance for flurries, said Paul Close, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

It would be more like snow pellets, not fluffy flakes, he said.

The best chance for snow would be from the Tampa Bay area to Brooksville on Tuesday night.

Even if there's no snow, the approaching front should bring some light rain coming off the Gulf of Mexico starting Tuesday afternoon from Interstate 75 west from Tampa north and lasting until midnight.

The weather service forecast does not say snow will show up that night, but meteorologists say the cold air moving over the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday will pick up moisture and form clouds as a cold front comes through.

If there is enough lift in the atmosphere to stack the clouds higher than the forecast calls for, the snow flurries could form, Close said.

Even without the possibility of snow, the front coming through on Tuesday will be ahead of the coldest air of this recent spell of cold weather that will show up Wednesday.

Enough cold air will be moving in on Tuesday that the high temperature for the day may come before sunrise and continue to drop during the daylight hours.

Forecasters say freezing temperatures Tuesday night and Wednesday night could go as far south as Punta Gorda with temperatures ranging from the low 20s in Hernando to the high 20s in Hillsborough County and low 30s in Charlotte.

Only Pinellas County would be out of the potential freeze, the weather service said.

If high pressure camps directly over West Central Florida on Wednesday night, temperatures could be even colder than forecast.